“I have the impression that our children are much more excited about going to school than children in other countries are. They think of it as a special privilege. Going to school, being with other children, getting books and pencils - all of that is like a dream for them.”

“Women in my country take their rights for granted and completely dissociate themselves from the women's rights movement and feminism. But I think anything's possible. If I don't help the women in Afghanistan, they won't be around to help me.”

“The women in that ward were simple, ordinary refugee women. They came from villages or very small towns. Even before becoming refugees, they had been poor. They had no education. They had no notion of an outside world where life might be different. They were being treated for various ailments, but in the end, their gender was their ailment.In the first bed, a skinny fourteen-year-old girl lay rolled into her sheets in a state of almost catatonic unresponsiveness, eyes closed, not speaking even in reply to the doctor’s gentle greeting. Her family had brought her to be treated for mental illness, the doctor explained with regret. They had recently married her to a man in his seventies, a wealthy and influential personage by their standards. In their version of things, something had started mysteriously to go wrong with her mind as soon as the marriage was agreed upon – a case of demon possession, her family supposed. When, after repeated beatings, she still failed to cooperate gracefully with her new husband’s sexual demands, he had angrily returned her to her family and ordered them to fix this problem.They had taken the girl to a mullah, who had tried to expel the demon through prayers and by writing Quranic passages on little pieces of paper that had to be dissolved in water and then drunk, but this had brought no improvement, so the mullah had abandoned his diagnosis of demon possession and decided that the girl was sick. The family had brought her to the clinic, to be treated for insanity.”

“And they all have pretty children,And the children go to school,And the children go to summer camp,And then to the university,Where they are put in boxesAnd they come out all the same.”

“And they all have pretty children, And the children go to school, And the children go to summer cam, And then to the university, Where they are put in boxes And they come out the same.”

“They [high school students] all seemed quite excited to be there [a formal dance], like they were finally getting a glimpse of this magical new world they assumed was adulthood. As if adults regularly got together at large dances, all dressed up in fancy new clothes.”

“And they all have pretty children,And the children go to school,And the children to go summer camp,And then to the university,Where they are put in bozesAnd they come out all the same.- Malvina Reynolds”